


There Are Many Names in History {But None of Them Are Ours}

by CypressSunn



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Art History, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani is an Incurable Romantic, M/M, Museums that like to play finders keepers with their artifacts, Queer History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/CypressSunn
Summary: “Why am I looking at Nicky’s dick?” Nile asks, apropos of nothing.“Yes, Yusuf,” Nicky turns on him, “do tell us; why is everyone looking at my dick?”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 164
Kudos: 2573
Collections: 101 Prompts Meme





	There Are Many Names in History {But None of Them Are Ours}

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearthouses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearthouses/gifts).



> Happy birthday [hearthouses](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hearthouses)! Hope you enjoy this... whatever this is. I was going to write you porn and instead I got twisted up in un-relateable immortals problems. I know that sounds ridiculous but it's been a long day, and I know you will forgive me. 
> 
> A special thank you to [scorpiod](http://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiod) for reminding me how much I love Richard Siken and picking the most perfect title. And as always, here's hoping the historical accuracy and translation holds water. Happy reading!
> 
> 101 Prompt, #98: Snapshot.

_People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them._ _  
__— James Baldwin_

They are wandering about the long corridors and heavy columns of an overbright exhibit in Berlin because Nile saw a billboard outside the U-Bahn and twisted their arms until he and Nicky agreed to join her. Andy excused herself from the venture. Mortal or no, she still manages to be simultaneously charmed by and impervious to Nile’s wide-eyed machinations. Joe lacks such a talent, but watching Nile bask in the glow of utter captivation before the classical antiquities is a sight he is glad not to miss. It is Nicky that requires supervision in the end. He is quick to dispel and belabor any mistruths on the similarities between Rome and Greece to a well-meaning history graduate. Joe has to steer him down a roped hallway in hopes of finding a safer topic. They are having far too pleasant an afternoon and Joe at least wants a cappuccino from the museum cafe before they are removed from the establishment.

Soothing Nicky with an arm around his waist and an affirmation that the term ‘greco-roman’ truly was nonsense, they stumble across an exhibit less traveled by tourists and sightseers. A shiny gold placard reads the title in several languages; ‘Queer Love from the Middle to Modern Ages’. A visitor not far from them grumbles alongside them how gauche and out of place the topic is among the other fine displays. Seemingly objecting to the naked men and women everywhere behind pressed glass cases.

Joe lets out a derisive snort. The other exhibits had no shortage of nude forms and uncovered shapes. Yet Joe hadn’t heard any such complaining about images of women carved by men.

In all her zeal, Nile meanders off to the centerpiece on display. There she stops in her tracks, looking back at Joe, then at Nicky, and again at the exhibit with her brow furrowed in confusion.

“Why am I looking at Nicky’s dick?” Nile asks, apropos of nothing.

“Yes, Yusuf,” Nicky turns on him, “do tell us; why _is_ everyone looking at my dick?”

Joe laughs. “What are you two talking about?” Whatever explanation they are searching for he can’t possibly give them. For all he or anyone else could see, his husband’s pants were very much fastened and his most intimate parts tucked safely away. Then Nile winces, as if on his behalf. She points to the row of seventeenth century pieces; love letters and artworks, books and journals propped open on pedestals to highlight illicit passages. And there it is in the middle. A yellowing but unmistakable parchment detailing Nicky in a slumbering repose. There were smudges of blankets twisted errant about him, shadows over his lower half, but not enough to hide his clearly illustrated softened cock at his hip.

“Oh.” It comes flooding back. The night in Venice in one of the boarding lodges near the gambling house, the Ridotto. They had too much wine and far too many rounds of basetta. They went to bed poorer men than when they had arisen that morn, but Nicky had been a vision under his hands. Rapturous and loose-limbed and untroubled, so much so that Yusuf had no other choice but to commit him to memory. He sketched until the sun came up, chasing the moonlight through the window on his lover’s skin. “Oh no.”

“You promised me,” Nicky hisses. His face is red. “Yusuf, you _swore_.”

“Yes, but I— Nicolò, wait! Come back!”

Nicky hurries off so quickly he nearly bows over a pack of tourists. Joe rakes a hand through his hair and turns to Nile. Her head is cocked and she's biting her lip; no one likes a front row seat to marriage drama.

“That could be anyone,” he assures her weakly, gesturing to the art.

“Sure, Joe.”

* * *

They get back to the Das Stue where Andy is holed up in a sat-call with Copley. Nicky is still fuming and Nile won’t stop laughing, and Andy is none too impressed by Joe’s explanations. “And what did they have this time? Not more of your lost sonnets, I hope.”

“That hurts, Boss.” Joe taps the left side of his chest. Andy had never liked his poetry. “Hurts right here.”

“They had _pornografia_!” Nicky shouts from the hotel kitchenette. It’s a testament to his anger that he plans to retreat into cooking something. One of the few things that calmed him when nothing else can. “They had it on display where all could gawk and stare at it!”

“It is not pornography, it’s art!” Joe slumps into the stiff padding of the couch. “Art good enough to get into a museum, I might add.”

“It wasn’t bad,” Nile tells him.

Nicky is not amused. “ _Arte che avrebbe dovuto essere distrutta_. You swore to me that you were rid of it.”

“Nicolò, _ti prego, perdonami_. These things just slip through the cracks. We can’t keep track of everything, no matter how hard we try.”

“Nile, come help me with the onions,” Nicky offers, deftly ignoring him. “And the garlic for the _bagna càuda_ , too.”

“Wait, I thought we were having shakshuka for dinner—”

“I don’t remember promising that,” Nicky mutters with a dismissive wave. “Perhaps it is another one of those things slipping through the cracks.”

* * *

The tension lessens by dinner with many platitudes delivered to Nicky’s red sauce and cheeses. The pair of them manage well enough to wash dishes shoulder to shoulder, Nicky murmurs a half-hearted apology for his overreaction while rinsing glasses. But he is still insistent, still hurt when he reminds Joe of his promise. “I asked you, Yusuf. I asked you to get rid of those.”

“I know. And I meant to.” Nicky casts him a disbelieving glance. Joe is certain he deserves it. His love isn’t wrong to suspect him. Joe had been more than partial to those sketches, proud even. Vincent was long dead by then but from his teachings Joe had finally gleaned some mastery over the human form. More importantly, over Nicky’s form, creating a snapshot in time before cameras were even dreamt of. Joe most likely found it more than easy to accidentally forget to burn the damn pages.

“I’m not sure when I lost them. Most of my sketchbooks are in our library in Nice. Or maybe the house in Bern…”

“Could you not have drawn anything else that day?” Nicky frowns. “A landscape, or a carriage? I remember the city was beautiful that night.”

“You were beautiful,” Joe cuts in. This is ground he will not cede. “Streets and carriages and all of creation did not hold a candle to you. How could I dare to draw anything else when you were so—” Nicky swears in no less than three languages before he kisses Joe. Tender and exasperated, his soapy grip tight to the back of Joe’s neck. He’s wringing the apology from Joe’s breathlessness, stubbornly shuddering against him. Joe is willing to yield to his fire and frustration, feels himself moved and rocked against the cabinets where Nicky stands flush and burning over him. A knob juts into his back but Joe can hardly notice it. He’s a man out of time, reliving kisses stolen in Venice, in Argos, in Beirut, in Malta. Memory is a living thing between them, electric and shaking in their grasp. The one thing Joe had never been able to commit to paper or prose was the way this tastes; the savor of an ageless passion.

“I am still mad at you,” Nicky vows.

“Of course,” Joe nods, brushing their lips together once more. He could lie prostrate before Nicolò and beg forgiveness if need be.

“It is just…” Nicky sighs, turning his head aside. Joe kisses his jaw instead, waiting for whatever is next. “I remember that night. It was a good night. Good food and wine, cards and bad luck, and private hours with the man I love. It was a night that belonged only to us and now… it doesn’t. It isn’t ours anymore.”

“Nicolò…” he pleads. The look Nicky tries to hide from Joe is devastating.

“It’s fine. I will get over it.” Nicky turns to the drying rack and begins shelving their dishes.

* * *

Joe finds Andy drinking on the balcony sitting across from Nile. She looks like she’s been waiting for him. Joe gets straight to the point; “I know we agreed after that one World's Fair that anything the mortals got their hands on was fair game. We didn’t like it, but we couldn’t take back everything we lost. But…”

“But now you want an exception.”

“Boss, he’s heartbroken.” He says it plainly. Nicky can hide it all he likes, but it’s the truth. “I gotta get it back.”

Andy rubs her temples. “If I’m not mistaken, you’ve drawn worse pictures of Nicky over the years. The one you’re describing barely counts as lewd.”

“But I made him a promise,” Joe explains. “It being out there, that’s proof that I broke it.”

“It’s been a long while since we pulled a heist job, Joe. Now you want to do this without our security expert?”

“An extraction is an extraction. And we don’t need that lying Frenchman to do it. Not while we have Copley. Trust me, Boss, we got this.”

Andy nods while Nile stands up from her chair. “Hold on, we are _not_ robbing a museum!”

* * *

They rob the museum three days later. Most of the intervening time is spent convincing Copley this is a worthy cause. He is not keen on launching an assault against public and historic properties. He doesn’t budge on the matter until Andy pulls him aside and asks him if there wasn’t some private remembrances between him and Anne that he would never want shared with the world. Nile is disengaging the alarms in the museum’s southern wing when it dawns on Joe that Anne must be the wife Copley lost to illness. He hadn’t really been paying attention, not when he could watch Nicky’s mouth slightly upturned, his shoulders easing.

In the darkened room behind the statuary, the hard floor echoes even under the softest step. Everything smells of glass polish and cleaning chemicals. Naked bodies and faces hover around them in judgement, but Joe does not care as he steps over the velvet rope. He cuts through the glass with gloved hands, a technique he will later begrudgingly admit to Nile he did learn from Booker, and like that the pages are back where they belong; slipped right between the pages of an old book Joe packed in his rucksack.

The exit is clean. The lone security guard at the front desk is distracted with his personal phone, if not more clearly attentive to the more priceless works. Nile reengages the security features from a safe distance and all’s well when Nicky throws his arms around Joe.

The theft is a minor blip on the news. Hardly the international incident Nile thinks it should be. She doesn’t mask her displeasure, frowning at the headlines and reminding them of the great import of art history.

“They have plenty of other pieces, Nile. Somehow I doubt they’ll miss this one that badly.” The sketch in question is still pressed within his book. Handling old parchments without damage was a hassle, but it would remain there until Joe saw fit to burn it. It would be a shame, really; it was one of his better works. But there was little in this world he would not gleefully resign to ash for Nicky.

* * *

They’re making plans to leave Germany when Nile pleads the last of her case. Only Joe doesn’t realize it is what she is doing until it is far too late. Andy finally gives into their youngest’s ebullient insistence that even she would enjoy the museum’s offerings. And there was something inexplicable in human nature that always led one to return to the scene of their crimes. So after his promised bone dry cappuccino, they mill about and take in the heightened security and _polizei_ presence.

The glass has been replaced but the space taken up by Nicky’s portrait has been left blank. All around them people are snapping photos with their phones, documenting the miniature scandal in their midst. 

“There were less people here before,” Nicky mumbles.

“The absence is probably far more interesting than the real thing,” Joe agrees. They seem to be the only ones looking at any of the other artifacts. Behind her shades and her scarf, Andy is enjoying herself despite her aversion to crowds, interest piqued by a rack of lesbian poetry. Nile is talking to a woman wearing a hijab and name tag clipped to her vest. Oddly, Nile appears to be comforting her.

“This is Karima,” Nile introduces after he and Nicky join her. “She _curated_ this whole exhibit.”

“Forgive me,” the woman says in English. “I cannot help myself. The crying comes and goes.” She blows her nose on a napkin.

“She’s been having a hard time since the robbery,” Nile points out. “This was her first assignment that the museum let her showcase. She worked _very_ hard.”

Joe isn’t a sucker. He slaps on a pitying face and let’s Nile do her worst. Crying women are no weakness of his.

“I should not say, but the truth is they did not want to advertise for the exhibit. There is not enough interest in these men and women.” Karima sniffles again. “I should have listened to my advisor. He was so fond of saying, _**‘** there is history as it was, and history as people want it to be. **’**_ He would say, you can only be successful if you give them the second.”

“I do not follow,” Nicky says. His brow is furrowed with concern but at least the distraught woman does not seem to recognize him.

“People like to believe, they want to believe, that _homosexualität_ is a modern invention. That it did not exist before airplanes and microwaves.”

Joe remembers the same spiel from the people in the thirteenth century, fifteenth, and so on. History has always been a short-sighted affair. It could not be helped. “Well, you still have all the rest to prove that isn’t true.” She doesn’t find comfort in Joe’s assurances.

“That particular piece meant a lot to her,” Nile adds pointedly. Joe wonders if he could talk Andy into shipping her off to France for a couple decades. Not a century. Maybe forty odd years or less. “Karima, you said it was your wife’s favorite piece?”

“In the whole exhibit, yes. Esther loves it. She works in languages, see, and she helped me translate the Arabic verses on the back. The artist, we don’t have his name but he was a Muslim man, probably a merchant traveling to Venice.” Karima wipes at her nose again, smiling. “A Muslim who met a Catholic and fell in love. Two different faiths in a different time, can you believe it? People act like that is impossible, even now. My own wife’s family, they’re Jewish and mine, well…” Karima’s gaze casts downward. She blinks hard and brushes away the last of her tears. “Well, it was a nice dream.”

A very official looking man beckons Karima to follow him, most likely to remark upon her tearful appearance. Karima bids them goodbye, and thanks them for their sympathies, and the three culprits are left standing there. Distantly, Joe can see Andy admiringly a bare breasted woman in an oil painting. At least someone was having a good time. 

Nile clears her throat, dropping all pretense and points to Karima. “Look at her, Joe. She’s crying. You made a poor gay history nerd sad.”

“Better her than— Nicky?” Glancing over, he sees his husband’s face affixed with a quiet shame, anguished lines set around his mouth. He does not take his eyes off of Karima. Absently, Nicky twists his wedding ring on his finger.

“She _is_ weeping, Joe.”

“No.” Joe stamps his foot. “No, you wanted—”

“I know.”

“You said—”

“ _I_ _know_.”

“It didn’t belong to us anymore if it was on display, that’s what you said. That’s why we—” Joe inhales deeply, choosing a lower volume. “We took it back because it was ours, Nicky. We didn’t do anything wrong.” Over the years they’ve stolen back books, weapons, tokens and trinkets. Booker once tried to steal back his counterfeiting plates before Andy put a stop to it. This is the first time they have taken back something so truly personal or precious. But now Nicky’s face is the picture of pity. He looks read to confess if that alone could comfort the poor girl. Joe really cannot believe he’s committed grand larceny only for his husband to change his mind. 

“Yes.” He closes his eyes ruefully. “It felt wrong to see it there. Because it was ours once, and it was beautiful. But maybe now it shouldn’t be. Maybe now it should be shared.” Nicky leans over to give Joe an apologetic kiss. He whispers close to Joe’s ear. “We can give up a piece of us if that’s what others might need. If they need it as proof that we have always been here.”

Nile looking triumphant is already marching off to join Andy under an a display reading ‘The Sapphic Renaissance.’ Joe feels so thoroughly outplayed by the woman and she’s not even thirty. She banked on Nicky’s compassion and of course she won. And because of her ploy Joe will have to somehow convince Copley that the stolen artwork now need be un-stolen. Perhaps conveniently rediscovered and returned to its now former owners, despite all Joe’s insistence that he and Nicky had been the rightful owners in the first place. A throb begins behind his skull. For a moment he almost misses Booker. He’d have a flask on him if he were here and Joe needs a good swig.

“This had better mean I am forgiven for not destroying the page in the first place.”

Nicky smiles, but makes no promises. Arm and arm, he pulls Joe close and leads them to rejoin Andy and Nile. Under the watchful eyes so often painted out of the narrative, they walk together backwards into history and ever forwards in time.

**_fin._ **


End file.
